To assist mothers with serious mental illness, healthcare professionals must be sensitive to the social and cultural context in which they mother in order to create healthier possibilities for nurturing their children.

Although it is widely accepted that spirituality is an important aspect of health and healing in long term care, its meaning and day-to-day implications remain poorly understood. This study explored the meaning of spiritual care from the perspectives of patients living with moderate to severe dementia, their families and their care providers. Using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, open-ended interviews were conducted in a dementia care unit with 29 participants, including patients, families, RNs, LPNs, and hospital chaplains. Interviewees were asked to share their stories and insights about spiritual care in dementia. Using hermeneutic analysis, the central theme of ‘little things’ was identified. Recognition and attendance to ‘little things’ promoted patients’ sense of personhood and connectedness to self and others. Barriers to spiritual care in dementia were also identified. These findings inform our understanding about effective relational approaches in spiritual care with this unique population.

In this article the authors expose some of the mystique surrounding field notes and theoretical memos in a Glaserian grounded theory study. Definitions, types, and content of field notes and theoretical memos are presented. Exemplars from a study of mothers living with serious mental illness are provided to illustrate how these forms of documentation evolved during the course of the study. The authors argue that, although the processes of field noting and memoing may blur as a study progresses, they nevertheless retain their independent functions. The authors contend that without understanding the complementary function of these two types of documentation, data cannot evolve to a higher interpretive level. This article contributes specific ideas for improving the methods used by qualitative nurse researchers.

Clinical education is a cornerstone of undergraduate nursing education programs. Although protecting patient safety in clinical learning experiences is a standard of practice, no standard definition of the "unsafe" student exists. The purpose of this study was to describe the viewpoints of undergraduate student nurses and their clinical educators about unsafe clinical student practices. Using Q methodology, 57 students and 14 clinical educators sorted 39 unsafe student practice statements. These statements were generated from an integrated review of nursing and related literature and two undergraduate student focus groups. The use of centroid factor analysis with varimax rotation produced three dimensions of unsafe student practices. An unsafe student was characterized by his/her Compromised Professional Accountability, Incomplete Praxis, and Clinical Disengagement. A shared attribute among these three features was violated professional integrity. While students' affective, cognitive, and praxis competencies were priority elements in the conceptualization of unsafe student practice, this study also identified the salient role of educators as active participants in preparation of safe practitioners.

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